Annie Adams Fields was the wife of James Thomas Fields, a partner in the Boston publishing firm of Reed, Ticknor and Fields (later Ticknor and Fields.) An accomplished author, social welfare reformer and hostess, Mrs. Fields was known for her strong literary friendships which included such individuals as Sarah Orne Jewett, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lydia Maria Child, Henry James, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.